Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 965 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2456-c1

Authors: Seta Kazandjian & Sylvie Chokron

The recent Perspective article by Han and Northoff (Culture-sensitive neural substrates of human cognition: a transcultural neuroimaging approach. Nature Rev. Neurosci.9, 646–654 (2008)) on the neuroimaging evidence of transcultural differences in neural substrates of cognitive functions

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 965 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2456-c2

Authors: Shihui Han & Georg Northoff

As we discussed in our recent article (Culture-sensitive neural substrates of human cognition: a transcultural neuroimaging approach. Nature Rev. Neurosci.9, 646–654 (2008)), neural activities of the human brain, in association with specific cognitive functions, are modulated

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 934 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2497

Author: Patrick Haggard

The capacity for voluntary action is seen as essential to human nature. Yet neuroscience and behaviourist psychology have traditionally dismissed the topic as unscientific, perhaps because the mechanisms that cause actions have long been unclear. However, new research has identified networks of brain areas, including

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 957 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2514

Author: Ilina Singh

What is attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? Why are so many children being diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed medication? Are stimulant drugs an effective and safe treatment strategy? This article explores the current state of scientific research into ADHD and the key social and ethical concerns

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 920 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2532

Authors: Ellen F. Lau, Colin Phillips & David Poeppel

Measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) has been fundamental to our understanding of how language is encoded in the brain. One particular ERP response, the N400 response, has been especially influential as an index of lexical and semantic processing. However, there remains a lack of consensus on

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 890 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2543

Author: Leonie Welberg

In the past few years there have been enormous advances in our understanding of how neuropeptides regulate social behaviour in mammals. Many studies have focused on the role of arginine vasopressin (AVP) in pair bonding and paternal behaviour in males, and on that of oxytocin

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 888 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2544

Author: Leonie Welberg

Mirror neurons were identified in monkeys as neurons that fire both when the monkey performs a particular action and when it sees that action being performed. Do humans also have mirror neurons? Imaging experiments have shown that select areas in the human brain, including in

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 892 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2545

Author: Monica Hoyos Flight

The signalling factor Sonic hedgehog (SHH) has been shown to specify the identity of motor and interneurons in the developing spinal cord in a concentration-dependent manner. Bai and colleagues now report that SHH does not act alone: WNT signalling lends a helping hand

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 888 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2546

Author: Katherine Whalley

Recent evidence has suggested that the rostral migratory stream (RMS) — the path that is followed by neuroblasts migrating from the subventricular zone (SVZ) to the olfactory bulb (OB) — may contain its own population of neural stem cells; however, the characteristics and fate of

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 890 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2547

Author: Claudia Wiedemann

Emotionally salient memories are better remembered than neutral ones, probably because they activate the amygdala; however, the cellular and molecular mechanisms that lead to memory formation in the amygdala are not well understood. Faber et al. now provide evidence that activation of β-adrenoceptors in

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 893 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2548

The first ever Kavli prizes, in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience, have been awarded this year. The million-dollar-prize winners in neuroscience are Pasko Rakic, Professor of Neurobiology and Neurology at Yale University School of Medicine, USA; Sten Grillner at the Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Sweden;

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 886 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2549

Author: Claudia Wiedemann

Synapse formation requires a complex interchange of signals to efficiently juxtapose presynaptic release sites with specialized postsynaptic sites. Neuronal agrin, a factor released from motor neurons, induces rapid phosphorylation of MuSK, a transmembrane tyrosine kinase of skeletal muscle cells. Phosphorylated MuSK is important for

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 885 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2550

As the year 2008 draws to a close, excitement and an expectation of change hang in the air, and not least in the field of neuroscience. “We have recently had a decade of the brain, and there is a sense that this will be a

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 892 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2551

NeurogenomicsFunctional organization of the transcriptome in human brainOldham,M. C.et al. Nature Neurosci.11, 1271–1282 (2008)How the genome encodes the complexity of the human brain has baffled scientists for years. A systematic analysis of

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 889 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2552

GliaGlia are essential for sensory organ function in C. elegansBacaj,T., Tevlin,M. & Shaham,S.Science322, 744–747 (2008)Sensory organs contain glia, but whether these glia contribute to sensory function is unknown. Here

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 888 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2553

Author: Leonie Welberg

An epidemiological study published recently in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine found that counties in the United States with high levels of precipitation have higher rates of autism than counties with low levels.“If there were no rain, the autism rate would

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 887 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2534

Author: Catherine Sebastian

Spinal cord injury disrupts the pathway between brain and muscle, causing paralysis. One potential strategy for treatment is to use a brain–machine interface to route control signals from the brain directly to the muscles, bypassing the site of injury. For the first time, Moritz and

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 891 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2541

Author: Monica Hoyos Flight

Rhythmically firing networks of neurons in the spinal cord, known as central pattern generators (CPGs), drive locomotive behaviours. How these circuits are organized to generate the rhythmic bursts of activity that result in left–right and flexor–extensor muscle coordination is still poorly understood. Two studies in

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 887 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2542

Author: Katherine Whalley

Although it is the selective death of motor neurons that ultimately causes the symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the disease also renders other spinal cord cells, including astrocytes, dysfunctional. Maragakis and colleagues have now shown that the replacement of damaged astrocytes through precursor cell

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 910 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2521

Authors: James M. Krueger, David M. Rector, Sandip Roy, Hans P. A. Van Dongen, Gregory Belenky & Jaak Panksepp

Sleep is vital to cognitive performance, productivity, health and well-being. Earlier theories of sleep presumed that it occurred at the level of the whole organism and that it was governed by central control mechanisms. However, evidence now indicates that sleep might be regulated at a

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 947 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2513

Authors: Tomáš Paus, Matcheri Keshavan & Jay N. Giedd

The peak age of onset for many psychiatric disorders is adolescence, a time of remarkable physical and behavioural changes. The processes in the brain that underlie these behavioural changes have been the subject of recent investigations. What do we know about the maturation of the

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 899 (2008). doi:10.1038/nrn2516

Authors: Thomas E. Willnow, Claus M. Petersen & Anders Nykjaer

VPS10P-domain receptors, such as SORLA and sortilin, constitute a recently identified class of type-1 receptors that are expressed in neurons. Family members are multifunctional proteins that target a range of ligands, including trophic factors and neuropeptides but also other transmembrane proteins. New findings have revealed